Gaeldom mourns

McAnallen, who was due to be married later this year, died in his bedroom and in his father Brendan’s arms in their family home in Eglish, just outside Dungannon. Early reports said only that he died of “natural causes.”
The All-Star and All-Ireland winner, who worked as a teacher in St. Catherine’s College, Armagh, had spent the previous evening training with some Tyrone teammates in a gymnasium before he cut short his workout, complaining his head was “sore.”
GAA president Sean Kelly led the tributes to McAnallen, saying that he was “numbed” by the news. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern described the school teacher as “a wonderful young man,” while Gaelic Players’ Association chief executive Dessie Farrell praised him as “an exemplary player, a wonderful talent and one of the game’s gentlemen.”
Perhaps the most moving tribute, though, came from his team manager, Mickey Harte, who only a month earlier had paid McAnallen the compliment of appointing him to replace the legendary Peter Canavan as team captain of the reigning All-Ireland champions.
“There are no words that we can think of that would do justice to the personality that was Cormac McAnallen,” a distressed Harte said. “He will be missed so much by everyone, especially his family. I found it very hard to tell my own family the news when I got it this morning. He was a real friend and gentleman. People talk about role models and they misuse the word. If you look for a real role model, then you look no further than Cormac McAnallen.
“There was so much about him that was so good. He had achieved everything that you could achieve in football, but we haven’t just lost a special footballer today, we’ve lost a special man, a special person. My heart goes out to his mum, Bridget, his father, Brendan, and his brothers, Donal and Fergus.”
McAnallen’s death sent the County Tyrone into mourning yesterday. Friends and supporters flocked to the family home, while GAA Web sites were inundated with contributions to their respective books of condolence.
His passing will be especially heartbreaking to this group of footballers, who have already had to endure numerous tragedies. Many of them were — along with McAnalen himself — on the 1997 minor team that lost teammate Paul McGirr after his liver was accidentally punctured while fisting a winning goal in an Ulster championship game against Armagh.
Later that same year, McAnallen’s regular midfield partner, Kevin Hughes, lost his brother in a car crash, while in 2001, his sister died in a similar accident on the same Ballygawley-Dungannon road only a month after McAnallen had lifted the All-Ireland Under-21 title for the second straight year. They also had to contend with the Omagh bomb, which occurred only six weeks before they won the 1998 All-Ireland minor title, again which McAnallen lifted.
Indeed, McAnallen was pivotal in helping the team get over such adversity. The Rev. Gerard McAleer, who has been Harte’s assistant at minor, U-21 and senior level and who coached and taught McAnallen at St. Patrick’s Armagh, noted that when the players broke up into different work groups to talk about the trauma of Omagh, a lot of the other players would say, “I want to be in Cormac’s group,” such was his presence, assurance and maturity.
McAnallen’s death coincides with the 25th anniversary of the passing of Christy Ring, and while his sudden death now robs him off the opportunity to achieve such legendary status, he, like Ring, won every honor there was to win in his sport. He is the only player ever to captain three All-Ireland winning underage sides, while last year he won his second Ulster senior title and National League medal to go with Tyrone’s first-ever All-Ireland senior triumph. Only 10 days ago he also lifted the Dr. McKenna Cup after captaining Tyrone in their impressive 1-22 to 0-7 win over Donegal.
He had also won nearly every individual honor the game had to offer. In 2001, he was voted Young Footballer of the Year for his performances at midfield that year, while last season his versatility led him to claim an All Star award at full back. He was also a member of the Irish International Rules team for the last three seasons.
A winner of the field
Off the field, he was a winner as well. He won several national quizzes with his brother Donal while he was the captain of the St. Patrick’s Armagh team that won a bus for the school after they emerged the victors of RTE’s All-Ireland school quiz, “Blackboard Jungle.” He graduated with a degree in Queen’s University, Belfast, while he also obtained a higher diploma in education at University College Dublin.
Those who played and coached with could not speak highly enough of him. Harte in particular loved him. In “Kicking Down Heaven’s Door: A Diary of a Football Manager,” Harte writes: “He’s incredibly mature, a real leader in a quiet, unassuming way. I often say to players, ‘You must try to learn something every session. You must strive to be a better player walking off this field than you were walking onto it.’ Cormac McAnallen is the embodiment of that. You should just observe that man when you’re talking to him. His neck stiffens, his eyes open up and his ears are peeled for any information that is about. His intensity at every drill is a sight to behold. A training session with Cormac McAnallen is a better training session for him being there; it’s as simple as that.”
Indeed, Harte’s respect for McAnallen is one of the main themes of that book. Though McAnallen came in for some fierce slagging for selecting Spandau Ballet’s “Gold” as his choice of song to the Tyrone CD, with his teammates shouting “Next!” in unison on several occasions when it came on on the team bus, for Harte, it was another insight into McAnallen’s unselfish nature. He chose the song for its uplifting, motivating lyrics, not its cheesy melody. “Always believe in your soul/You’ve got the power to know/You’re indestructible/Always believe, because you are gold.”
The Tuesday after Down’s Dan Gordon had caused havoc from full forward in the drawn Ulster final, Harte recalls in his book that he asked McAnallen if he would be willing to move from his customary position of midfield to fill the troublesome full-back spot, the player said he had no problem, whatever was best for the team. “Cormac McAnallen is gold,” writes Harte.
But sadly not indestructible.